Indirect calorimetry (IC) is the gold-standard for determining measured resting energy expenditure (mREE) in critical illness. When IC is not available, predicted resting energy expenditure (pREE) equations are commonly utilized, which often inaccurately predict metabolic demands leading to over- or under-feeding. This study aims to longitudinall…

Premature infants often undergo postnatal growth failure and show an altered body composition (BC) at termequivalent age (TEA) with lower fat-free mass (FFM) and increased fat mass (FM) than infants born at term. Early nutrition and growth may impact brain growth. Nevertheless, the evidence relating BC and later neurodevelopment remains sparse…

Critical illness demands objective, targeted nutritional therapy to prevent adverse effects of underfeeding/ over feeding. Thus, all recent societal guidelines recommend indirect calorimetry use to determine energy needs. Current commercially available indirect calorimeters are often inaccurate, and the inconveniences have led to significant chal…

The outbreak of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has presented a global public health emergency. Although predominantly a pandemic of acute respiratory disease, corona virus infectious disease-19 (COVID-19) results in multi-organ damage that impairs cardiopulmonary function and reduces cardiorespirat…

Body composition is a sensitive marker of infants’ intra- and extrauterine growth quality that can influence short- and long-term outcomes; including retinopathy of prematurity, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), metabolic health, cardiovascular and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Low body fat percentage at birth in small and appropriate for gestatio…

A major driver leading to the lack of emphasis on timely ICU nutrition delivery is lack of objective data to guide nutrition care. If we are to ultimately overcome current fundamental challenges to effective ICU nutrition delivery, we must all adopt routine objective, longitudinal measurement of energy targets via indirect calorimetry (IC). Key e…

A task force supported by the European Respiratory Society has recently developed the first evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis of asthma in children aged 5 to 16 years. Nine PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome) questions were used. The task force then developed a diagnostic algorithm based on the…

The current review aims to summarize the complex relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and nutritional status and the effects of malnutrition in terms of disease severity, patients’ recovery time, incidence of complications and mortality rate. In COVID-19, this relationship has shown to be crucial across the disease phases, particularly in pe…

The cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) provides an objective assessment of ventilatory limitation, related to the exercise minute ventilation (VE) coupled to carbon dioxide output (VCO2); high values of VE/VCO2 slope define an exercise ventilatory inefficiency. This prospective study explores the methodology of CPET to evaluate pulmonary damage…

Nutritional and metabolic disturbances are observed in patients critically ill with COVID-19. At each step of the progression of the disease, ICU patients with COVID-19 should be carefully evaluated in terms of malnutrition risk and medical nutritional support. The tremendous challenges posed by the continuous clinical changes requires adequate a…

The use of indirect calorimetry (IC) is increasing due to its precision in resting energy expenditure (REE) measurement in critically ill patients. Thus, this study aim to evaluate the clinical outcomes of an IC-guided nutrition therapy compared to predictive equations strategy in such a patient population. This systemic review and meta-analysis…

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread worldwide determining a dramatic impact on the healthcare system. Aim of this study is to evaluate mid-term clinical impact of COVID-19 on respiratory function. The respiratory system is subjected to major involvement during COVID-19 also due to the hyperactive host immune response and the inflamma…

Acute kidney disease (AKD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are highly prevalent among hospitalized patients and they have important metabolic and nutritional consequences. Moreover, in case of kidney replacement therapy the possible impact on nutritional profiles, substrate balance, and nutritional treatment processes cannot be neglected. The pr…

This is the first European study reporting on respiratory follow-up outcomes after SARS CoV-2 infection. In this study, reduced DLCO, decreased distance of 6MWT and desaturation during 6MWT were correlated to a severely impaired COVID-19 phenotype, and importantly this relationship was not confounded by age, sex, or BMI. This findings co…

This review article summarizes current evidence supporting the role of higher protein intakes, especially during the early phases of nutrition therapy in acute illness, methods for assessing protein requirements, as well as, the currently available high-protein enteral and parenteral nutrition solutions.  There is sufficient evidence (albeit limi…

The study showed that VO2max is clearly elicited in all distances from the sprint to the marathon. A fast start and the time to reach VO2max is important in increasing VO2 kinetics and to improve exercise tolerance. The K5 portable breath-by-breath sampling system was used to measure VO2 and carry out the scientific study. Human locomotion natura…

A new validation study on Cosmed Q-box system including both in-vitro and in-vivo testing was published on ERS (European Respiratory Society) Journal. The usefulness of any diagnostic tool depends on the combination of accuracy, reproducibility and stability. The aim of this study was to conduct a validation of the COSMED Q-box system including…

A new study was published on ERS (European Respiratory Society) Journal to provide LCI (Lung Clearance Index) reference values in pulmonary healthy adults. Lung clearance index (LCI) is the most commonly used MBW outcome parameter but normative data is scarce. LCI was derived from triplicate MBW measurements based on Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) a…

The study wants to explore the longitudinal association of neonatal adiposity (fat mass percentage) with BMI trajectories and childhood overweight and obesity from ages 2 to 6 years. METHODS: We studied 979 children from the Healthy Start cohort. Air displacement plethysmography was used to estimate fat mass percentage. Child weight and recumbe…

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by accelerated aging, but the age-related changes in body composition and its modification by sex and race are unclear. METHODS: We assembled a cohort of 516 patients with CKD and 45 healthy controls and serially measured body composition using air-displacement plethysmography for up to 6 years. Mix…